The Bike Friday® name is a homage to the character "Friday" from Daniel Defoe's 1719 novel, commonly referred to as Robinson Crusoe, but actually entitled The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates. Written by Himself. (Try tossing that snappy title into the bowl for your next game of Charades.)

Friday, as you may recall, was Robinson's loyal and incredibly competent aide and companion, aside from being an escaped prisoner and a somewhat transparently self-serving metaphor for colonial imperialism.

Literary interpretations aside, the Bike Friday name grew from the realization that a high performance, elegantly folding bicycle could be a companion of the highest order, competently replacing the car as the preferred mode of transportation, and thus rescuing us from our entrapment on the desert island of oil dependence and the desolation of a sedentary life.

Also, it's a cool name.

Another cool name is Green Gear, Inc. That's our official incorporated name, which comes in handy when we're talking to accountants and attorneys and when we're branching out with new inventions, ideas and ways of doing things. But to you and our other friends, we're Bike Friday.